Sister George is a beloved character in the popular radio series Applehurst, a nurse who ministers to the medical needs and personal problems of the local villagers. She is played by June Buckridge, who in real life is a gin-guzzling, cigar-chomping, slightly sadistic masculine woman, the antithesis of the sweet character she plays. June lives with Alice "Childie" McNaught, a younger dim-witted woman she often verbally and sometimes physically abuses. When June discovers her character is scheduled to be killed, she becomes increasingly impossible to work and live with. Mercy Croft, an executive at the radio station, intercedes in her professional and personal lives supposedly to help, but she actually has an agenda of her own.
Lukas Heller wrote the screenplay for the 1968 feature film version directed by Robert Aldrich. Beryl Reid was cast as June. Bette Davis and Angela Lansbury were considered for the role. Susannah York played Alice and Coral Browne as Mercy. In the movie Applehurst became a television soap opera, and the lesbian aspects of the plot are much more explicit.
The film added many characters and shot many scenes on location. The opening sequence has June wandering through the streets and alleyways of Hampstead west of Heath Street. Another is in a real-life London lesbian hangout, the Gateways Club. Alice is portrayed as childishly naive rather than dim-witted, and June is more of an alcoholic. In one scene, while under the influence, she molests two novice nuns in a taxi, behavior that precipitates the beginning of the end for Sister George.
Between the time the movie started filming and ended production, the movie industry instituted the new MPAA ratings system. Largely on the basis of a graphic sex scene involving Alice and Mercy (deleted in some TV screenings) Sister George received an X rating, which limited its exposure in theatres and ability to advertise in mainstream newspapers. Aldrich spent $75,000 battling the rating, but his lawsuit was dismissed, and the film died at the box office.
Beryl Reid was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Drama.
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